


the way you trouble mine

by too_much_in_the_sun



Series: there's a room where the light won't find you [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Life in Night Vale, Mental Health Issues, background character adventures, man tagging things is hard, spirituality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:17:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a bumper sticker on your car -- an old red Takuro Spirit -- that has been there as long as you can remember. It is possible you put it there. It is printed in bright, cheerful ink. It says "Remember, You're Not Paranoid If They Really Are After You".</p><p>This is kind of the guiding principle of life in Night Vale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the way you trouble mine

You didn't always live in Night Vale. You used to live somewhere else, with more grass and fewer coyotes. 

When one night you heard Cecil begin his broadcast with "This is a story about you," you were doing the dishes, and you froze instantly with your hands in the hot soapy water. You were sure that the end of your happy life in Night Vale had come.

People arrive in Night Vale all the time. But they never seem to leave.

* * *

You remember the night you came here. The long drive away from your previous life became, at some point, a drive towards somewhere. Where? Somewhere.

The road dipped up and down across the hills and little canyons of the desolate country where you found yourself near sunset. Your headlights reflected off the little dots running along the center line. The tires hummed on the asphalt, and you wondered who kept the roads maintained out here so far from town.

You were not far from people, though. The lights of houses sparkled across the land when you glanced off to the side of the road, flickering in the night like so many counterfeit stars. It was a new-moon night, and the stars above outshone those below, casting their thin silvery light on the scrub oak. The speed limit was 45, and you felt no urge to exceed it. The nighttime desert encourages contemplation. And slow driving.

A faint light curved over the horizon as you drove, and you thought that you must have lost time, drifting in your own thoughts. That you had driven, half-dreaming, all night. You were not drowsy.

You had turned the radio off back in Kayenta, no longer interested in whatever propaganda the air waves carried. Now you were thinking of turning it on again, if only for the static.

The radio fuzzed and burbled to life without your touching it as the light grew nearer and more defined and you saw that it was a city.

"Somewhere, Coyote is watching over you," said a warm, mellifluous voice from the radio. "He is waiting for you. Welcome to Night Vale."

* * *

Night Vale attracts its own. It draws them like light draws moths, though with less deadly results. You have probed gently among your fellow new arrivals, as delicately as a dentist probes a dead tooth, and found that all your stories match up. You were all driving in the desert, aimlessly, when suddenly you found yourselves in Night Vale.

You discovered the common denominator that draws people here during your first month.

You had found a place to stay, a little trailer in the small trailer park out near the car lot. You were smoking on the porch, and a helicopter passed overhead. You could not identify the color at a glance, but you felt instantly uneasy. Helicopters passed by much, much more often than was logical. It didn't happen in any other part of town; they didn't patrol over the Ralph's or near the Moonlite All-Nite. Just your trailer.

You remembered seeing posters at the Ralph's for a radio station that took calls. The police would not help. They never do. 

You place the call. The phone rings. He picks up.

"Night Vale Community Radio, Cecil speaking."

His voice is perfect. Perhaps you should tune in to his show more often.

"Cecil, I need your help," you hiss into the receiver. Not literally. It's more of a low whisper. In Night Vale it is important to make these distinctions: last week all the cashiers at the Ralph's temporarily sported the heads of various giant reptiles. Instead of their normal heads, not alongside them. That would just be weird. 

A shuffle of papers in the background. "If you're calling about the epidemic of creeping existential paralysis, then I'm afraid you should really call Night Vale Community Hospital instead," he says. He sounds sympathetic.

"No, it's not that. There are yellow helicopters watching my house." Your voice cracks halfway through the second sentence. "My trailer. I don't see them anywhere else."

"Oh, those? Well, that's not very polite of them. Those are from the Sheriff's Secret Police," he explains, his voice patient, silky. "They're keeping an eye on you until the end of your first month in town. They should have come by to introduce themselves before now."

"They're not going to hurt me, are they?"

"Of course not." His tone is soothing. Honest. "Their job is to keep you safe, especially from the World Government. We've had some problems with them lately," he muses. "By the way, if you see any blue helicopters, that's World Government. Stay away from those ones. The Sheriff's Secret Police is OK, though!" he adds brightly.

You are taken aback for a moment. No one else has ever spoken Their name to you before, not where They could hear. Although from what you've picked up around town, it seems like this may be the one place where They cannot hear.

Maybe that's why you were drawn here. You seem to remember that that's why you started driving in the first place, so long ago. Trying to find a place where They couldn't hear you anymore. Couldn't follow you.

Couldn't find you.

"Cecil... are the phone lines tapped?"

"You haven't been here for long, have you?" he says. "Of course they are -- by the Sheriff's Secret Police," he adds. "You did receive the pamphlet for new residents, right?"

"Yes, it was on my kitchen table the first day." Which was odd, since you hadn't yet bought a kitchen table then. It kind of sat in the air as if it were lying atop an invisible table. When you bought an actual table, you put it there out of defeat. 

"Well, I'm certain you read it, but go back over it. The back page should have the names of the Secret Policepeople assigned to your residence, and instructions for contacting them. I'd recommend doing that soon. It's good to have a close relationship with the people who monitor your home."

You are reassured by the smoothness of his voice. And confused by what he is saying. Usually when you broach the topic of being watched over, or even hint that They are watching you, people back away from you. Cecil takes you seriously.

It even seems like what you are experiencing is normal in Night Vale.

(It would be nice to be normal.)

"Look, I'm sorry, but I have to go. My show is starting soon. But if you'd like to talk again, this is my personal phone. You can call any time. I love talking to new residents!" His tone flattens out, and he adds, more seriously, less brightly, "Don't text me, though. I just got a new phone and it seems to eat them. Literally. I haven't charged it since I got it."

"Thank you," you rasp. Your throat is dry. Your eyes are wet.

"You're welcome. Remember, though -- the yellow helicopters cannot hurt you. They're there to protect you. Stay away from the blue ones. Those are not there to protect you." He sounds exactly like a public service announcement. It's uncanny. "Thank you for calling!"

He hangs up.

You fumble around in your few possessions, and uncover an ancient clock radio that you swore you lost ten years ago. No matter. You plug it in and turn it on, scanning through the airwaves until you find Cecil's calm voice speaking to you. 

Heat pulses out of the sand wastes, even though the sun is sinking below the horizon now. The sky is clear blue, shading into indigo at the east where the evening star will soon be visible.

You go back outside and sit back down. From Old Woman Josie's house, salsa music drifts to you, muted by the distance between you. A helicopter passes overhead.

It is yellow.

The radio crackles from the kitchen, and as Cecil's voice washes over you, you find you are not afraid for the first time in years.

* * *

The next morning you get up and go into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Your coffeemaker is ancient, stained, faithful. It has come with you in the back of your car from -- from wherever you came from. The place beyond Kayenta. The World you came up from.

As the coffee brews you step outside to get a first look at the rising sun. You are trying to quit smoking, so you deliberately leave your lighter inside by the stove and your cigarettes in the desk drawer. You used to enjoy smoking as the sun came up, but in Night Vale that is a habit you will have to abandon. 

Last night you tried to contact the Secret Policepeople ("not men or women," the pamphlet says, "just people, somewhere in between birth and death") who keep watch on your home. You didn't exactly succeed. You are considering making offerings to them. It's a common gesture towards guardian spirits.

Anyway, this morning there is a pamphlet lying on your back porch where you sit to watch the sun or the sky or only the birds. It is pinned down with a rock, a pretty chunk of sandstone. When you lift the rock to see what the pamphlet is about, you are surprised.

It is about religious practices in Night Vale. "Bloodstone Circles And More," it's called. Also, when you lift it up and turn it over, there is a little post-it note stuck to the back with a phone number on it. "Text any time, about anything" it says. It's signed "SSP", which must be Sheriff's Secret Police.

You put it back down, and the sandstone on it. You were never really religious, but when you're raised up in a tradition it's hard to let it go. When you were small, one of your aunties told you, half as a joke, half a prophecy about your future, that you would always be protected by the Trickster -- whether they were personified as Coyote or as the Christian Devil, the Trickster would always watch over you. Your life would never be easy nor simple, but someone would be caring for you, keeping you on the right path.

You sit down slowly on the cold concrete for a moment of rest and a fumbling attempt at prayer. You grew up betwixt and between, never sure which tradition you belonged to, and you never learned the proper ways to offer prayer, but it seems like it's just speaking to a powerful spirit and hoping that they hear. Offerings are common, and you resolve to start setting out some bread and water by the back door. It can't hurt. If the old ways work like they used to anywhere, it'll be here.

You remember what Cecil said, what you heard when you first saw Night Vale -- _Coyote is watching you, Coyote is protecting you_ , and you feel like Cecil's words are true. He sees much more than any usual person could. He knows Night Vale in and out. This now includes you.

You look out over the desert, into the scrublands and the sand wastes. There's heat haze in the distance, and ravens circling on a thermal. A rabbit hops slowly from one bush to another. _If you protect me, protect me from blue helicopters,_ you think, hoping this counts as praying. _Let this town not be a lie. Let me have found a place where the people are like me._

You feel a little ridiculous, and you drop your gaze to scan the sand at your feet. It's hard to read tracks in sand, but the pawprints leading from east to west are unmistakeable. They look like dog, but you know in your heart they are not. You look west, following their line.

There is a coyote standing there, as you knew there would be. Perhaps he is the presence you have felt here on occasion, not a watching eye, not Them -- a kind spirit, like a friend or a guardian. That might just be the Secret Police, but... perhaps it is also Coyote.

He has very green eyes, like new leaves after rain. His fur is the color of sand and good earth. He belongs here.

You belong here.

"Good morning," you say. 

He blinks slowly and nods. 

"Welcome to Night Vale," he says.

He has Cecil's voice.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 2 in a loose, ongoing series of short fics about the place where mental illness and life in Night Vale meet, because the headcanon that "lel cecil is just ~~crrrazy~~ and hallucinating all the stuff that makes night vale interesting" hits me on more wrong levels than a malfunctioning elevator.
> 
> This note edited because I managed to come up with a series tag! This fic and "does it feel like a trial?" are now tagged into "there's a room where the light won't find you", and that's where other fics along these lines will go <3
> 
> Edit: Yes, this was written after the title of "Yellow Helicopters" was announced and before the episode aired. Ssh. Ssh.


End file.
